No, Better Sooner Than Later
Bedard's NCAA West crew loaded with youth
Many athletes carry two types of goals in their bag.
There are the immediate goals, the items to check off a list during a season. Those often tie into the long-range goals, things they want to accomplish in the future, with those ever-changing immediate goals leading them down the path.
Nothing feels better when they actually become one in the same.
Brian Bedard’s Colorado State track and field program will send 21 men and women to the NCAA West Preliminaries May 26-29 at E.B. Cushing Stadium at Texas A&M to compete in 25 events, and of the group, eight are freshmen by eligibility.
“It’s a very young group,” sprinter Tom Willems said. “I’m glad all of us get to grow together.”
Want to see a coach and staff feel good about how recruiting’s going? Have a large group of them advance to a major competition early in their careers.
“That means we’re recruiting the right kind of kids and hopefully developing them,” Bedard said, his men’s team coming off a second consecutive Mountain West championship while the women were the runner-ups. “They’re competitive and they have some talent. I think it’s a great signal for the future of our program.”
Willems came to the program expecting to be at the preliminary meet as a freshman, though it took until the Mountain West Championships for him to hit the qualifying time in the 400 meters. Teammates Lars Mitchel and Bailee Carr looked at it much differently, like a target down the road.
Understandable, considering both are attacking races they are new to – Carr the 800, Mitchel the 3,000 steeplechase. Like Willems, Carr broke out at the conference meet, while Mitchel hit his qual time a few weeks earlier.
Any time an athlete can get there as a freshman or as a young athlete, it’s just valuable experience about that style of meet. People can tell you what it’s going to be like, but until you go and see what it’s about, you just don’t understand it.Brian Bedard
Mitchel was liking his training, especially the group he was working out with. But we’re talking about practice, and that never invokes the adrenaline of competition. He hadn’t run an outdoor season since two years prior in high school, and his cross country season was messed up when he contracted coronavirus.
That leaves questions. And when he was happy about his 1,500 at a meet, distance coach Art Siemers tossed him a curveball.
“It was funny, because I ran 3:51 here, which converted to 2:46, which at the time was wherever in the standings,” Mitchel said. “I was pretty stoked and I hadn’t raced in two years, so it was good to see that progression. It was funny, because right after Siemers was like, ‘no you’re a steeplechaser. That was cute in the 15, but you’re a steeplechaser.'
“Qualifying, it didn’t seem real at the time. The expectations are so high here, it almost felt like it was expected, and that’s the way Siemers treated it.”
Which was the same vibe Carr picked up, because she was positive she gave her coaches reason to worry while learning to run the 800 collegiately. She was hurt her senior year in high school, so her time away from the track had really been extended.
Now throw in a mid-distance race which is treated by a sprint by many, and, to put it mildly, she’s pleasantly surprised.
“Honestly, for me, I just really wanted to run my freshman year,” she said. “I was hurt my whole senior year in high school, so I hadn’t really run since my junior year. This is my second year at CSU, but the first meet, just getting to run was my biggest goal of the season. I did not expect this.
“It’s amazing. I would never have expected that going into it. Coach Siemers and Coach Andrew Epperson, they’ve been very patient with me and getting me ready to peak at the right time.”
Now comes the fun part. This meet is odd in there are no finals. The top 48 competitors around the West come to the meet aiming to finish in the top 12 to qualify for the NCAA Championships (in Eugene, Ore., this year), so once the semifinal round is finished, so is the event.
Throwers get three tosses to extend their season, then call it good.
Experiencing that, Bedard said, is priceless for a group to have so early in their careers.
“It’s the experience of the meet. It’s so different than any other meet we go to,” he said. “It is an NCAA qualifying event, so there are no finals, champions, medals, anything like that. It’s just a different feel, a different type of meet that I think from an experience standpoint is very valuable when you can get there young. My daughter, Kelsey, did when she was young in her career, and I think it was really beneficial for her. Any time an athlete can get there as a freshman or as a young athlete, it’s just valuable experience about that style of meet. People can tell you what it’s going to be like, but until you go and see what it’s about, you just don’t understand it.”
What they all understand very clearly is the competition is top shelf. Bedard thinks some of them may be even a bit naïve about just how good, especially with the sport coming out of a pandemic and many athletes who would have graduated are back for a final run.
Being a bit in the dark is not a bad thing, however. What he likes most is none of them are timid about the challenge which awaits.
“My biggest success when it comes to progression is racing better competition,” Willems said. “I find when I race somebody who is better than me, I get pushed to get better; they drag me along to a better time, which is good. There’s a guy from New Mexico, Carlos Salcido, I’ve raced him three times, always come a centimeter behind. He’s there, and hopefully I can reverse him.
“In the first race, I’ll see who’s good to chase and then I’ll use that for the years to come as a push for me to strive for better times.”
Being pushed is not a new concept for any of them. Mitchel is positive the group he runs with, which includes a host of qualifying upperclassmen, challenges him daily. Carr, too, trains with a group filled with NCAA cross country qualifiers, a few of whom will also be running at the NCAA West meet.
Even when they were running from behind, they knew they were catching up. All they needed was to finally have outdoor meets to make it fact.
“I knew I would be the back of the pack my freshman year, cleaning up everybody’s dirt because they’re dusting me in workouts,” Mitchel said. “I put in my work, did my time and I’m running toward the front, and it’s awesome just to have all of those guys around me doing the same thing. I think it shows how good of a program we have here at CSU.
“It’s just so nice having this team here, because we all have the same goals. Preliminaries, NCAAs, the expectation to make nationals as a team in cross country. Everybody working toward that common goal, I think that’s kind of what – I don’t want to say it makes it easier – but you hold each other accountable, definitely. The funny thing about classes, we were on a run the other day, every single graduating class among the five of us is going to regionals. I was like, man, that’s some range right there on this squad.”
All of the youngsters are learning each step of the way. All of them say qualifying gives them complete trust in the process and how the coaches approached training in a worldwide pandemic to have them ready.
Not just the training, but doing it having cross country, indoor and outdoor seasons running with nearly no break between them. There had to be adjustments for both sides. Now, they get to put it all to the test on a rather large stage.
What happens next, none of them really know. Bedard said if he talked to all eight of them separately after the meet, he’s 100 percent certain no two of them will come away with the exact same read on the meet and how they digested it all.
“I think it’s mostly excitement. This is really a celebration, just seeing how the whole process of this year unfolded,” Carr said. “Obviously I want to do as well as I possibly can at regionals. It would be amazing if somehow I ended up in Eugene after this, but really, it’s just a celebration of what happened with this season.”
One thing is for certain, they’re all excited to take this next step, even if it seems like they hopscotched a few paces along the way.